- Summary
- Videotape testimony of Emmanuel R., who was born in Bardejov, Czechoslovakia (presently Slovakia) in 1921, one of five children. He recounts his family's orthodoxy; attending public school and cheder; antisemitic harassment; apprenticing at a lumber business; moving to Mizrachi training facilities in Michalovce, then Poprad, preparing for emigration to Palestine; conscription into the Sixth Slovak Brigade in October 1940; slave labor digging canals in Svätý Jur, then in a brick factory near Bratislava; his family's evacuation to Žilina in 1944; visiting them briefly (he never saw his parents and younger brother again); hiding his sister as a Catholic (he obtained papers for her); escaping to join the Slovak uprising; capture; incarceration in Sered; deportation to Auschwitz/Birkenau; a friend giving him extra bread; a Soviet POW stealing potatoes from him; assignment to the kommando blowing up the crematoria; a death march to Gleiwitz; transport in open trains to Mauthausen; Czech workers in Vítkovice throwing them food en route; transfer to Plattling; slave labor digging pits; hospitalization; liberation by United States troops; traveling to Prague then Bratislava; reunion with his sister and one brother; traveling to Piešt̕any; recuperating in Trenčianské Teplice; and emigration to the United States to join his uncle. Mr. R. discusses attributing his survival to not thinking and taking “things as they come” in camps; physical aliments resulting from his experiences; wanting to forget his experiences in order to keep his sanity; and recently recovering letters written by his father to his uncle prior to and during the war.
- Author/Creator
- R., Emmanuel, 1921-
- Published
- Dallas, Tex. : Memorial Center for Holocaust Studies, 1986
- Interview Date
- November 9, 1986.
- Locale
- Slovakia
Germany
Czechoslovakia
Bardejov (Slovakia)
Michalovce (Slovakia)
Poprad (Slovakia)
Svätý Jur (Slovakia)
Žilina (Slovakia)
Vítkovice (Ostrava, Czech Republic)
Prague (Czech Republic)
Bratislava (Slovakia)
Piešt̕any (Slovakia)
Trenčianské Teplice (Slovakia)
- Cite As
- Emmanuel R. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-826). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.
- Other Authors/Editors
- Pennebaker, James W., interviewer.
Einspruch, Burton, interviewer.
